Being the amazing, true-to-life adventures and (very likely) misadventures of a writer who seeks to take his education, activism and seemingly boundless energy to North Minneapolis, (NoMi) to help with a process of turning a rapidly revitalizing neighborhood into something approaching Urban Utopia. I am here to be near my child. From 02/08 to 06/15 this blog pushed free speech to the envelope, so others could take heart and speak unafraid. Email me at hoffjohnw@gmail.com

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Image is originally MN DOC mug shot, with MN DOC website downand original mug shots unavailable today, JNS blog relies upon a sensiblepublic safety exception to copyright and uses image from www.mugshots.com, also First Amendment Fair Comment and Criticism,blog post by John Hoff

With the Minnesota Department of Corrections website down, as reported yesterday, individuals living in the most crime-plagued neighborhood of Minnesota are unable to obtain info in convenient and useful form about MN DOC inmates and, more importantly, fugitives and criminals who are on supervised probation. The MN DOC website does contain some compilations of information, even in its present "down for maintenance" status, but that information is inferior in content and inconvenient in form compared to what was there previously. Given the notorious unresponsiveness of MN DOC, there is no telling when that website will be back up, whether it's going to be hours or months. One neighbor emailed me today and complained about an inability to obtain MN DOC info Gregory Beauchamp Washington, who was convicted of raping a 15-year-old in a church choir while he was the director of that choir. The rape happened in Plymouth but Beauchamp was......a contract music teacher at three different schools in North Minneapolis. As reported back in 2009 in the STrib (home of the most annoying pop up advertisements in all of journalism) nobody with the school district ran a required criminal background check on Washington before he was hired. Incredibly, Washington had been convicted of a similar crime in the late 1990s in St. Paul, ALSO involving a 15-year-old girl. During THAT incident, Washington was the music director of Zion Baptist Church in North Minneapolis. One of my readers went to the MN DOC website to learn the current status of Washington and was unable to do so. The reader then wrote to me as follows:

Not too long ago I was perusing the MN DOC offender locator (before it went offline) and noticed he had been released from prison in 2012, but is required to register until 2113, I believe. That is not a misprint on my part. However I was never able to find him on the list of Level 3's. How could that be?

It is entirely possible that he has cleaned up his act and is living a good life now, but one can't be too careful and since he has many previous ties to Nomi...well, you know.

Since Washington has a long, long history of working in North Minneapolis churches while committing acts of molestation, my reader wants to make sure this isn't happening again. With MN DOC offline, it isn't even possible to determine this guy's probation status. And, as noted previously, this "down time" comes at a very suspicious moment; Hennepin County has unilaterally announced it won't take anymore Level Three Sex Offenders (supervised) in the 55411 and 55412 zip codes. A good number of residents are interested in seeing if MN DOC will attempt, somehow, to dump more Level Three Sex Offenders on us, anyway. To count the number of Level Three Sex Offenders in a certain zip code, residents need the MN DOC website up and running.

8 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The site is down for weekend maintenance as was announced in an email.

If you really need to know something and have a need for information you can always call the DOC and ask as they are a public agency. The only thing you won't be able to do is swipe photos for your blog.So instead of hiding behind your computer why don't you pick up the phone and call the DOC. Give them your "famous" name and ask anything you want.Certainly the DOC will be eager to provide into to the great Johnny Northside, or is it Johnny Northside!If you have time maybe you could write one of your famous letters, I'm sure the guys over at the DOC will need a laugh to get them through Monday.

Haven't heard of any email. Furthermore, if the site was only going to be down for the weekend why wouldn't it say so on the site itself? That would be so much easier than sending out any emails, wouldn't it?

But the site is back up, new and improved.Sorry Johnny you didn't get the email. Unfortunately, the world cannot rotate based on your needs.I guess you're just not as famous as you think. I did got the notice, guess I got friends in higher places (or maybe I know how to sign-up for DOC information).Maybe if you weren't such a dick people would be nicer to you.

I visited New Salem Baptist Church in North Mpls last year and Gregory Washington was playing the piano. Hmmm....interesting. It's possible that he was filling in for someone. Then again, he should be allowed to do that either. Sick.